THURSDAY, Feb. 15 (HealthDay News) -- American teens are cutting
back on their use of marijuana, but their abuse of prescription
drugs in recent years has stayed the same or increased.
That's the conclusion of a report released Wednesday by White
House drug czar John Walters.
From 2002 to 2005, rates of marijuana use declined from 30.1
percent to 25.8 percent. Over that same period, the use of the
prescription painkiller OxyContin increased from 2.7 percent to 3.5
percent, and the use of Vicodin, another painkiller, increased from
6 percent to 6.3 percent, the
Associated Press reported.
Teens are also abusing anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax and
stimulants like Adderall, Walters said. Overall, 2.1 million
American teens abused prescription drugs in 2005.
Teens are abusing prescription drugs, because they believe
they're safer than street drugs, and they're also easier to obtain,
according to Walters. He said many teens get prescription drugs
over the Internet, from friends, or steal them from household
medicine cabinets, the
AP reported.
"The drug dealer is us," Walters said, adding that adults need
to keep track of prescription drugs and dispose of them properly
when the drugs expire.
The report is based on the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and
Health, a survey of 68,308 families, and the 2005 Monitoring the
Future Survey of 50,000 eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders conducted
by the University of Michigan.
The findings mirror two studies released last week. The first
found that, despite media reports of addicts getting prescription
painkillers such as OxyContin from the Internet, most of them are
actually getting these drugs from family, friends or dealers.
The second study, which looked at the abuse of these drugs in
the general population, found that more teenagers are getting their
hands on these powerful medications.
Dr. H. Westley Clark is director of the U.S. Center for
Substance Abuse Treatment, part of the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). He said, "About 60 percent
are getting their drugs from friends and family for free, while
another 15 percent go and buy them from friends."
Clark was referring to numbers from SAMHSA's 2005 national
survey of drug use, which also confirmed that opioid analgesic use
is on the rise among teens. "So, in the case of a general
population, drug dealers aren't the biggest problem either,
although it's certainly no surprise that hard-core addicts are
getting it that way," he said.
"Of course, we can anticipate the possibility of a growing
Internet problem, particularly among young people, and we need to
have some controls," Clark added. "Things change, so you can't lose
vigilance. But we also do not want to exaggerate the magnitude of
the current situation, and we certainly do not want to deny people
with real health problems their medications."
More information
There's more on OxyContin abuse at the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.